Israel’s best spokesperson is none other than our very own former secretary of state, according to Haaretz columnist and professor Peter Beinart, who argues that Hillary Clinton’s empathy for Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisions is exactly why she “gets so much wrong” about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The silence of the European Union, including especially Germany, whose Chancellor Angela Merkel declared support for Israel’s right “to defend itself,” constitutes a collaboration with Israel’s “journey of destruction and death, waged against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” journalist Amira Hass writes in Haaretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper.

Haaretz’s Gideon Levy wants us to wake up and smell the Zionist coffee: Israel has never cared about a “just peace,” only about “collective anxieties” that “now take precedence over all else,” he writes. In other words, Levy claims, “The Israelis want occupation, not peace.”

In Israeli cities such as Haifa and Nazareth, officials and religious authorities have tried to ban celebrations of non-Jewish holidays by forbidding decorations in public buildings and threatening to revoke kosher certificates from businesses.

In a plea deal with Israeli authorities, former soldier Anat Kamm has admitted to leaking more than 2,000 classified military documents to the Haaretz newspaper, including information on an Israeli operation aimed at killing West Bank Palestinian militants.

Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, Haaretz, condemns the Netanyahu government’s “farce” of an inquiry into the deadly flotilla raid: “The conclusions of an ostensible probe are intended to justify retroactively the decision to blockade Gaza ... and to use deadly force on the deck of the Mavi Marmara.”

Haaretz’s Akiva Eldar has seized upon the holiday to suggest a biblical metaphor: “For 43 years, the Israeli public—schoolchildren, TV viewers, Knesset members and Supreme Court judges—have been living in the darkness of the occupation.”

Members of the Israeli government marked Holocaust Remembrance Day in various locations around Europe on Wednesday, invoking the refrain of “never again” and commemorating the millions killed—but according to Haaretz’s Gideon Levy, some of these leaders also used the occasion to serve more contemporary, and unsuitable, ends.

Haaretz’s Gideon Levy writes that the “cheap and harmful journalism” of the Swedish organ harvesting story has made life more difficult for opponents of the occupation: “The Israeli occupation is ugly enough without the contribution of Nordic fairy tales. ... [A]ny exaggeration in describing the occupation’s cruelty will ultimately damage the struggle against it.”

There’s no putting it any better than Haaretz did: “The Knesset approved Benjamin Netanyahu’s return as prime minister last night amid allegations that his new government is bloated, convoluted and unprepared to deal with Israel’s many problems.” The newspaper surveyed the Israeli public and found that 54 percent already disapprove of the new regime.

Israel’s next government just got a little less ultraconservative, as Labor has agreed to join the coalition-in-progress of conservatives, nationalists and religious fundamentalists in exchange for a commitment to continue negotiations with the Palestinians. It remains to be seen, however, whether Labor’s MPs can stomach the agreement.

With his party holding 15 seats in the Knesset, Avigdor Lieberman of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu is poised to pick Israel’s next government. Lieberman would like a choice cabinet post in exchange for anointing the next premier, but he’s under investigation for allegedly laundering millions of overseas dollars.

Tzipi Livni, leader of the centrist Kadima party, took a slight lead in exit polls and early returns after Israelis voted Tuesday in parliamentary elections. However, with Likud a close second and a splinter ultraconservative party set to win about 15 seats, conservatives may be the real winners. Update

Haaretz’s Gideon Levy recalls the mathematician whose dutiful students drew up plans for a “blood pipeline” without questioning why it should be built. With Gaza, he warns, Israel faces such a test and “when the time comes for reckoning, we will need to remember the damage this war did to Israel.”

The U.S. presidential election was watched with interest, of course, by Israelis, some of whom favored John McCain because they believed he would have been a better “friend of Israel” than Barack Obama will be. Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy wonders if there aren’t some problems with this idea.

Though it wasn’t immediately official, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni won control of the country’s ruling Kadima party and, if she is successful in forming a governing coalition, will be the first woman prime minister in more than three decades. Livni is currently Israel’s lead negotiator with the Palestinians and, according to the newspaper Haaretz, was seen as likelier to reach a deal than her party rivals. Update

Attacks by Israeli forces killed more than 70 Palestinians on Saturday as fighting intensified in northern Gaza, prompting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to call the incursion “more than a holocaust.” Two Israeli soldiers were killed and seven were wounded, the Israeli military reported. Updated.